Nestled in the corner of a quiet cul-de-sac in a residential development situated between the Stillorgan Road and Rock Road is number 3, Seafield Drive. Before current owners Lucy and Steven bought the home in 2018 – for €665,000 according to the Property Price Register – it had belonged to the same family for about 50 years, Lucy says. “We changed everything,” she says, describing the four-month renovation, which included rewiring, replumbing, upgrading the windows and extending the kitchen. The refresh is evident throughout the freshly painted home, which feels very much like a new build and has a C1 Ber.
This four-bed semi-detached home, extending to 126sq m (1,356sq ft), is in a convenient location close to the N11 and is well-served by public transport for Dublin city centre. UCD’s Belfield campus is nearby as well as several schools including Blackrock College, Sion Hill and St Andrew’s College. Having rented an apartment on Baggot Street before, the owners were pleasantly surprised by the friendly community atmosphere of the area; a local group organises kids’ events on the green, for example, most recently for Halloween.
The gravel driveway of number 3 fits two cars comfortably and there is also a one-car garage.
The living room to the front of the house is complemented by a large bay window and built-in shelves and cabinets on either side of an open fire.
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This room opens up, through pocket doors which the owners tend to leave open, into the dining area of the spacious open-plan kitchen/dining room. This room was extended into the back garden and gets plenty of natural light through two Velux windows and French doors which lead to the back garden. The northwest-facing garden has a lawn and a patio as well as built-in wooden benches in one corner.
Storage space
The wooden kitchen units are painted grey and offer plenty of storage space. The generous-sized kitchen island is a practical addition, adding more storage as well as sectioning off the kitchen from the rest of the room. The house is perfect for entertaining, the owners say, adding that recently their parties have been geared towards celebrating the birthdays of their two small children. What was once a coal shed off the kitchen is now a utility room housing appliances and the combi-boiler, and there is underfloor heating in the kitchen area.
There is a guest WC under the stairs and the family bathroom at the top of the stairs has a free-standing bath. Beside that is a double bedroom with built-in sliding wardrobes.
A larger double bedroom at the front of the house also has built-in wardrobes and was once used as the main bedroom before the attic was converted into an en suite bedroom, with under-eaves storage and a nook with a window, where Steven currently has his work desk. There is a third single room on the first floor being used as a nursery; an existing wooden bench could be easily removed to add more space.
Steven, from Dublin, and Lucy have decided to relocate to Lucy’s native Belfast and are looking forward to putting down roots there. They will miss their Dublin home, however, where they put in a lot of work to create a bright, turnkey family home, now on the market through DNG’s Rock Road branch, seeking €895,000.
